A posed picture represents young women trafficked for sex. An African teenager has said she was brought to Australia, held against her will and sexually asaulted for weeks.
Photograph: Niall Carson/PA

A teenage girl from West Africa has said she was held in a Sydney home against her will and used as a sex slave for weeks before managing to escape.

Police are searching for a woman hailed as a Good Samaritan who found the 17-year-old after she escaped in the early hours from a Sydney home on 27 April and dropped her at the Asylum Seekers Centre in Newtown.

After consultation with the University of Technology Sydney’s anti-slavery unit, the teenager was taken to Royal Prince Alfred hospital for treatment.

She remains in the care of Family and Community Services.

The teenager from Guinea said she arrived in Sydney in early April and was driven to a home where she was kept in a room and sexually assaulted by a number of men.

The Australian Federal Police human trafficking unit has been brought in to investigate, along with the NSW police sex crimes squad.

They want to speak to anyone who may have seen or heard from the girl after she escaped.

The girl said in January she met a man in her home country who offered to bring her to Australia as his cleaner and in April they travelled together to Sydney via Paris.

Police said they believed the woman who rescued the teenager was called Nicole and drove a small red car.